Michael McGuigan September/October 2024
Animal Nutrition
- Crop of Interval is growing well
- Red clover silage will be fed along with it
- Fodder budget on target for the winter
Breeding
Michael is planning to calve around 25 cows in spring 2025, including 20 cows and 5 in calf heifers. He is trying to build the herd back up and while he is switching to a spring calving system, he was disappointed with the scanning results which resulted in 10 females not in calf out of 32 bred. He has already bought in 2 cows with heifer calves at foot this year. He will buy another 2 in calf heifers or cows with calves at foot to help build back up his breeding numbers.
The scanning results were unexpected as over 90% of the cows were served in the first 2 weeks and very few repeated. As Michael is changing from a November to spring calving system, they also had longer to recover after calving, plus he had the Sensehub system in place to help with heat detection. They are vaccinated against leptospirosis and IBR but he plans to blood test them for neospora 4-10 weeks pre-calving. A mineral issue has already been identified and corrected on the farm.
Michael has already identified some weanling heifers that he plans to breed next year, 2 of which are the bought in weanling heifers. His aim is to be in the 5% of herds on the Eurostar index and his primary focus will be on building the herd’s milk figure, followed by the others. His herd is already in a good position at €108 on the replacement index, 19kg for carcass weight, -0.88 days on daughter calving interval and 0 for docility. The milk figure is only 3 stars at 3.1k
Figure 1: Eurostar figures for the herd
Photo: The in-calf cows at grass after weaning
Nutrition
The crop of Interval (rape x kale hybrid) is growing very well since it was sown on 14th August. It was rotovated pre-sowing and rolled afterwards. The red clover silage and good quality 2nd and 3rd cut silage will be fed to the weanlings when they move on to it.
Photo 2: Crop interval, pictured 10th October 2024
Weanlings are being fed 1.1kg ration/head/day.
The red clover crop was cut for the second time in early October and yielded 8.5 bales per acre. It was sown on 31st May.
Michael completed a fodder budget for the farm for the 24 cows and 26 weanlings that he expects to have over the winter. Including the 2ha of Interval, he has 193 days feed ahead which he is very happy with. There are 25 bales of hay and 356 bales of silage in the yard and he expects to have some left over, depending on the weather this autumn and next spring.
Performance
The weanling heifers (11) were weighed on 12th September and averaged 326kg, after gaining 0.93 kg/day since 16th August.
The weanling bullocks (15) were weighed on the same day and averaged 379kg, after gaining 0.82 kg/day since 15th August.
Photo: Weanlings at grass
Two heifers, 1 bullock and 3 cows are being fed at grass for finishing. They are being fed 6 kg ration/head/day and Michael expects to sell them next month.
7 bulls were sold live in September.
Photo: The finishing bullock
